The Storm Commeth, and Is Here

For several days weather forecasters have been saying we would get a significant winter storm beginning on Thursday, today, and lasting into most of the day Friday. They've been fine-tuning exactly what kind of precipitation we would get, and how much of it. At one point they thought it would be mainly an ice event, then a combination of all types (ice, sleet, freezing rain, and snow), and finally beginning as sleet/freezing rain and shifting to mostly snow. The latest winter storm warning suggests we'll get up to 7 inches of snow.

This forecast has come long before any sign of a storm showed up on the radar, or even in the clouds. This feels eerily the same as in early 2012, I think it was, when a week ahead of time they forecast a blizzard, long before anything showed in the sky. Darned if they weren't exactly correct. We got 16 inches of snow at our place in that storm, and the temperature and wind were exactly what the forecasters predicted.

This storm they forecast would hit our area about 11 a.m. to noon today, and last through Friday afternoon. But they were wrong. The first frozen precipitation began falling around 10 a.m. Imagine that. A prediction three or four days ahead was off only by an hour. Not as to the type of storm, or how it started, but only to the exact timing of the start. As of right now it is playing out exactly as forecast. The show should start around 4 p.m.

So how do I turn this into a metaphor of life? Or of my writing life? Deciding to write added a layer of busyness to my life. And a degree of separation. While certain writing tasks I can do while with others or with background noise, such as the TV, other writing tasks require quit for concentration. This includes the research for non-fiction. It includes most original composition for fiction. Plotting, proofreading, editing, correcting, these can all be done anywhere anytime. At other times separation and silence is necessary.

I won't be coming in to work tomorrow. Every way I could go has hills to navigate, and my truck doesn't handle well in snow. So I'll stay home, and write to my heart's content. I'll shoot for at least 3000 original words on Headshots. Typing edits on 20-30 pages in the Carlyle encyclopedia book. Maybe completing the first draft of the first chapter of The Gutter Chronicles Vol. 2. I might even see about the short story I've started, the next in the Danny Tompkins series.

How much of this will I actually get done? Will the storm cause us to lose power? Will I have to shovel snow and chop ice, or in other ways burn valuable time? I certainly have much non-writing work to do at home, include filing three or four months of accumulated financial papers, as well as get caught up on financial calculations on the stock trading business.

Yes, my life is a storm, a self-caused storm. Very predictable. Known tasks recurring at known frequency, put-off-able, but eventually piling up to the point where shoveling and chopping is necessary.

So let the snow come, as much as it wants to. A few days of isolation will be a welcome break in the routine.